Well, that’s it.  N has discovered the dog’s food and water bowls.  I will never sit down again.

That’s not the activity… that’s just the reason I had to find an activity!  I was baking cookies with L when N kept crawling over to dump the dog food all over the place.  I grabbed this jar with a pom-pom that has been sitting on the counter for weeks [what?  Don’t you keep that in YOUR kitchen???], and a new infant activity was born.  I never imagined it would be such a hit!

I put the jar down on the floor a couple feet away from N and then watched the magic happen.  I could see the wheels turning in her head as she caught a glance of it, pivoted, and made her way over.

At first N wasn’t quite sure how to get the pom-pom out.  She began by rolling the jar around on the floor.

Then she discovered that she could put her hand in the top of the jar to pull out the pom-pom!

After a while, she started picking up the jar, turning it upside down, and dumping the pom-pom out.  Exactly what she had been trying to do with the dog food.

Yes, I used a real glass mason jar for this activity.  Why?  It’s hefty.  It makes a neat sound when she drops it, but it’s thick enough that it won’t shatter from the short height at which it is falling.  The glass is cool and smooth when she explores it with her mouth and hands, and the soft pom-pom inside adds a contrasting texture to heighten the sensorial experience.  When she tires of this one, I’ll try adding something metallic (perhaps a jingle bell) instead of the pom-pom to add the element of sound.

---